Monitor response times and refresh rate

[manageri]

I'm thinking of buying a new monitor for my PC, and I'd like clarification on exactly how much response times and refresh rates affect gaming.

Does a 2ms response time really do anything over 5, even theoretically? Isn't the delay of the monitor's refresh rate (whether it's 60 or 120 Hz) considerably bigger, meaning it doesn't really matter whether the data arrives at the monitor faster if it isn't ready to draw the next frame yet, except in situations where something important happens on screen like 3ms away from the next frame (which would grant you such a tiny amount of extra time I doubt you'll ever win anything thanks to it)? Or am I understanding or calculating something wrong here? 60Hz refresh rate = 1/60 = 16ms between frames, and hence 8ms on a 120Hz monitor, correct?

 

[cookybiscuit]

Response time doesn't influence input lag (its pixel response time, how long the pixels take the respond after the card has been sent to the monitor, it has messed with it, and sent it to the panel), only how much motion blur there will be, input lag will be far longer than response time due to processing and such. Refresh rate makes a massive difference, even at 60FPS, a 120/144Hz monitor will look a million times better because there will be almost no vertical tearing, plus you have the option of going to a higher framerate if you wanted to.

I wouldn't worry about response time at all, most 8ms displays are 60Hz anyways, so its not going to matter, and the 120Hz+ ones are 2ms or less.

 

[manageri]

Thanks for the clarification. I'm looking for just a good gaming monitor, and don't care as much about how pretty everything looks as long my performance isn't affected. Would you say that any 120Hz monitor is more or less just as good as any other for purely gaming?